Blood and Rage
by Saint Joy
Summary: After months on the meteor, Karkat finally finds himself outside the room where Gamzee had been hiding out. The scent of blood and hint of rage intimidates him, but as soon as he raises a hand to knock on the door, he knows there's no turning his back on his moirail now. Unrequited GamTav; gore warning.


"Gamzee!" Karkat breathed, as he stumbled down the dark staircase where he sensed his moirail's presence. His scent mixed heavily in the air with the stink of blood that made the Cancer troll shudder. He knew what Gamzee did with those corpses, in the dark, where no one was around to interrupt him. Karkat reached the bottom step and approached a closed door. He tried the knob; locked. "Gamzee?" he called, knocking quietly on the metal. A shuffling sound came from inside, but nothing came to answer. Karkat held his breath, and knocked again. This time the knob turned slowly, and the door creaked open to reveal the purple-blooded troll. His makeup was smeared to the point where it was practically nonexistent, as if the troll himself had purposefully scratched it all off. The three claw scars across his face had faded to a light purple, but were still clearly visible even in low light. The colorful bloodstains all over his clothing frightened Karkat, but he tried his best to remain calm.

"'Sup, my moirail motherfucker," Gamzee drawled, his eyes half-lidded. In that alternating whisper-scream voice he had, he then shouted, "What the motherfuck are you doing here!?"

"Gamzee, you idiotic fuckstain," Karkat sighed and clasped onto the lanky troll's chest in a hug. "You fucking worried me, that's why I'm here. You're fucking impossible to find, do you realize that, you doucheballoon? Let me inside."

"I don't think you want that, motherfucker," he replied. "It's all fucking messy and looks like shit, and I don't feel like scaring the fuck out of my motherfucking moirail!"

"Don't care. I'm going in." Before Gamzee could stop him, Karkat slipped out of the hug and past him, only walking into a scene that was worthy of horror movies. Green, blue, brown, half the blood colors in the hemospectrum were spread in paintings all over the walls and floors in a deceivingly cheerful pattern. In a dark corner sat decapitated bodies, and in the center of the room were their missing heads. A single mirror, miraculously still in one piece after all the cracks that appeared to be in it, leaned against a wall. Karkat turned back to the purple-blooded troll, who had a shameful whimper plastered onto his face. A pitiful expression that practically made Karkat want to cry. "Jesus fuck, Gamzee."

"I motherfuckin' know," Gamzee mumbled. "You don't need to fucking say it another motherfucking hundred times!" he shouted. He fell to his knees, broken as the mirror on the wall, and hung his head into his hands. Karkat shuffled towards him and kneeled down as well, and brought the troll's head to lean on his shoulder.

"Shhhhhhhh…," he whispered as he slowly rubbed his moirail's back. "It's okay, you clownish asshole. Relax."

"Honk," the lanky troll murmured.

"If you honk one more fucking time, I swear to god I will shooshpap you into fucking oblivion."

"Haha," Gamzee said. "Sounds like just what I motherfucking need right about fucking now!" he yelled. "I miss him. I miss my sweet little motherfuckin' bro."

"Who do you miss?" Gamzee pulled away, stumbled over to the pile of heads, and plopped back down. He hefted Tavros' head into his hands and stared at it for a few moments before cuddling it in his arms. "Oh. Tavros."

Purple tears began to spill down the troll's cheeks. "Thought I could motherfucking handle it! Thought that everything would be up and good again. Thought that, because his motherfucking body was here, and…," he choked on another sob, "I could motherfucking pretend he was here, too." He lifted the head up to face him, stared mildly into its blank, unseeing eyes, and slowly pressed his lips to its cold and bloody ones. After a few quiet moments of still kissing, the purple-blooded troll started to engage in a tongue-filled kiss with the unresponsive head, as if it returned his flushed feelings. Karkat couldn't help but cringe, but all the same he drew closer to the capricious troll. "It's not the motherfucking same!" Gamzee shouted.

"Put the head down, you pitiful lawn-ring hose of shit," Karkat asserted, reaching a hand over to his moirail's unrequited matesprit's head. Gamzee shifted it away, but the other troll reached forward again and shakily covered the head's eyes, and closed them. "You're skinny as fuck. Do you even remember what food looks like?"

"Don't know, motherfucker. It's all been up and blurry to me for a while."

"You need food to live, idiot. I'll get Sollux to alchemize some grubloaf for you, and then get some towels or some shit like that to clean this mess up."

"Motherfucking _towels_!" Gamzee raised his voice again. He gently put down Tavros' head and violently pulled another head, Equius', by its hair into his hands. "This motherfucker liked towels. He motherfucking sweat like those fucking hoofbeasts he loved so much! He was a good bro, before he had to up and die." Luckily, Karkat was spared from touching the blue-blood's head, for the purple-blooded troll put it down again.

"I'll… be right back, Gamzee. If I see that you've moved a single fucking inch from this exact spot, I'll confiscate all your remaining Faygo and throw it into the Green Sun. Stay. Here." The candy-blooded troll quickly absconded the room and dashed back up the stairs to obtain food and cleaning supplies. Gamzee blankly stared at the door after him, mildly wondering where his bro went, since he had forgotten completely what Karkat had said not moments before. He heard Karkat hurriedly stomp back down to the room and sigh with relief upon finding that he was exactly where he left him. "Good boy, good Gamzee. Here." He set down a plate of grubloaf and a fork in front of the lanky troll. "Eat."

"Aw, motherfucker, that's all nice and shit," the purple blood said graciously. "You're a moirail no other motherfucker could ever be fucking blessed with!"

"I know," Karkat mumbled, as he watched Gamzee shovel the food into his mouth. Admittedly, alchemized food wasn't perfect, but goddammit this nookstain needed some form of sustenance, fast. When he was finished, Karkat took the dish and set it behind him, and carefully brought out the cleaning supplies. "I'll help you clean up."

"That's motherfuckin' bitchtits," Gamzee said, nodding and taking the rag Karkat held out to him. "Where should I fucking start!?"

"The walls, dunderfuck," said Karkat. He pulled the lanky troll up to his feet and brought him over to a particularly messy wall, sprayed a load of cleaning fluid onto it, and pressed Gamzee's hand to wipe it all up. "Being around corpses and blood all the time is doing exactly nothing to help your nonexistent mental stability. Start washing."

"Sure thing, bro," Gamzee drawled, his head lolling to one side. He swiped his hand over the bloodstains, smudging them further before cleaning them off. Karkat busied himself with another rag and another wall, wrinkling his nose from the mixed scent of blood and the sting of disinfectant. As he wiped the cloth over a particularly thick stain of olive-colored blood, memories of its original owner flashed through his mind. Red tears prickled at his eyes as he remembered the poor girl who tried to avenge her murdered moirail, but ended up joining him in death. Maybe it was for the better, being that they were so close. Even though he was a murderous, capricious, idiotic clown, Karkat couldn't imagine a life without his moirail there for him. He heard a quiet thunking sound behind him, and whipped around to find the source. Oh. It was only one of the heads settling against the ground. Gamzee was fine. He was still cleaning the wall like a good troll. Doing an okay job, too.

"What have you been doing down here all this time?" Karkat asked.

"Been doin' a lot of thinking, brother," Gamzee muttered. "A whole lot of motherfucking thinking!"

"About?"

"About everything. About everything I motherfucking up and did!" the troll shouted. "If anything'll ever be the same."

"Gamzee," the candy-blooded troll said quietly as he dropped his hand from the wall. "This is going to kill you to hear, but as your moirail I have to fucking tell it to you straight." He paused. "Nothing will be the same. Our fate was sealed as soon as I ran that code, as soon as I decided to play this fucking stupid game, thinking it was only for fun. It's my fault, and I'm sorry."

"Don't make everything about you, motherfucker!" Gamzee raged. "Don't go all and blaming yourself again. Everyone in this whole fucking group made some motherfucking mistakes! And that's okay, because we all can be up and makin' this better. Didn't you motherfucking say that to me!?"

"…I did," Karkat mumbled. "But this isn't fucking about me. I'm not even making it about me. This is about you and your monstrous issues that I… will help you get through." Slowly, Gamzee's arm dropped from the wall as well and he hung his head. The two stood on opposite sides for a moment, not facing each other, completely silent.

"You know what you can motherfucking help me with?" the purple-blooded troll whispered, anger seeping into his voice. "That motherfucking mirror on the goddamn fucking wall!" He screeched as he whipped around and launched his rag to the broken mirror next to Karkat. The cloth fell limply on the ground with little more damage, but Karkat had turned around with his eyes wide and slammed himself against the wall in fear. He could have only imagined what would have happened if he left the cleaning bottle with the other troll. Gamzee drew closer and Karkat's breathing became short and quick as he relived Gamzee's original rampage throughout the meteor. Adrenaline rushed through his veins as Gamzee slammed his arms on either side of his head and pressed his face close into his. Their eyes, black as coal, locked: one filled with fear, the other filled with wild rage. Gamzee's top lip curled up into a snarl, revealing the brown blood on his sharp fangs. "I dunno why it's there. Must be some sort of fucking punishment for a blasphemous motherfucker like me!" His shouts hurt Karkat's ears, but he remained frozen against the wall. "You know what it shows? You know what it up and motherfucking shows!?" He paused as a shuddered breath escaped his throat. "Me. Motherfucking me! Fucking clown bastard who killed his friends. Covered in their motherfucking blood! I'm a motherfucking artist, aren't I, Karkat? These motherfucking mirthful pictures I painted with their colorful as fuck blood!" He growled angrily. "And Tavros' blood is the ugliest. Poor motherfucker. Honk!" Gradually, Karkat swallowed the lump of fear in his throat and leaned into Gamzee, and wrapped his arms around the waist of the taller troll. He rubbed soft circles on his back and patted his shoulders, whispering a "shh" sound into his chest. Gamzee's grip on the wall slackened as he rested his head on Karkat's shoulder and his arms went limp.

"I'm not going to say everything is going to be okay," Karkat murmured, a sick feeling rising in his stomach as he inevitably inhaled more bloody scents off of Gamzee's shirt. "But it will get better. We can and will defeat Jack, and whatever's out there that's destroying dream bubbles. We'll reach victory, we'll find our new universe, for us." He hesitated for a moment. "Maybe, when the game is finally over, you'll find Tavros, too." Gamzee choked and sobbed into his moirail's shoulder, purple tears staining the fabric. "Gamzee." The purple-blooded troll sniffled.

"Karkat, my palebro," he whispered.

"How about we get rid of that mirror?"

* * *

Palebro feels after listening to "Shooshpap You" about ten thousand times. Thanks for reading!


End file.
